This is a discussion thread for the formation of a new Sharen Alliance squad. As I've stated elsewhere, when I come back to RH (which I expect will be soon), it'll hopefully be as a member of the Sharen Alliance. There's people interested in forming such a squad and this is the place where I'll be discussing it with them.

I don't have much for this post yet (need to attend to some chores first) but I wanted to get this up and running all the same. Forgive the lame title; I am terrible at naming things and thought I'd try my hand at being quirky.

Madea wrote:As a reminder, all relic hunters are issued a backpack, rations, 2 bandages, a coil of rope, and a bedroll. Anything considered vital to survival will be issued to the squads temporarily, anything further is considered a luxury and must be purchased.

Still brainstorming on names for the squad(kind of got caught up in the cameo rush there for a bit), but I figure if we know what roles each of us are considering, it might help us get some character concepts rolling.

I was likely thinking of doing a weapon specialist, although I'm torn on following my love of close range axes of death or maybe spicing things up and going for a ranged type, using a crossbow. I can likely adapt either way to suit the needs of the squad.

*nods* Weapons specialist would be excellent. I'm thinking that, with there being four of us right now, maybe we should split it? 2 weapons specialists, 2 mana specialists?

There's also the clan your character is from to consider; mine has to be a Sharen of Zala's line, but the rest of you have a bit more freedom than that. The links in my first post should help with that - the short of it is that we can only have one Jieyen and one Balv per squad. Can also have another Sharen so long as it's either a male or a protector twin; if one of you wants to be protector twin to my squad leader, that'd be cool, but not required.

I'm leaning towards my character having an earth sorcery speciality. That seems to be tremendously useful. (Another one I was considering was air sorcery but I'm not sure on that.)

As for the squad name, I'm still at a bit of a loss. I toyed with the name "Wind Dancers" for a bit, to give an impression we're a speedy squad but I'm not sold on that. "Dragon's Claw" is another one, with this being Sharen Alliance and all.

If i use my Jie'yan Geninidia, I wouid go with Mana Specialist for him, since I have him as being a skilled Shadow Sorcery with two Dark Foci and not all too much physical strength and martial ability outside of standard Jie'yan hand to hand and two short daggers he really prefers not to be in situations to use.

Yeah, splitting it up that way might be good, then we're each getting what we're after.

I think a protector twin would be cool, interesting potential there. I'd be happy to be your living shield, I MEAN protector, Nerdy!

Towards the squad name, if we do focus our squad towards the concept of being speedy, we have the potential to be quite good at 'stealth', if we combine the Earth with Shadow to bypass enemies and be sneaky sneaky. "You can't kill what you can't see/catch."

Dis: That's an excellent idea. Shadow sorcery is damn useful. As Guilty suggests, I think that would complement my character having earth sorcery very nicely.

Guilty: Welcome to the wonderful world of being a protector twin! Venlyn will be most grateful to have your character around. For companionship, of course. =P

I'm definitely a fan of speedy/stealth. I've seen those sorceries in action before and they're both very good at helping with speed and/or stealth. We'd certainly still have to play it smart but they'll be good tools to help with that.

For us Mana specialists, we are limited in what weapons we can carry. I'll have to dig around in the above links to confirm which. You weapons specialists, though, have more freedom for weapons.

I've updated my first post with a summary of what we've suggested and/or decided on. Let me know if there's any changes or corrections to make.

I'm already part of a squad, Basilisk Squad, but I like to offer my two cents to help out. It's best to have a well-balanced squad, either a squad of 3 weapons spec and 2 mana spec, or 3 mana spec and 2 weapons spec.

My squad leans towards the later, focusing on mana arts while me and another member act as weapon sepcs/tanks to draw attention away from our mana specs. Having more mana specs with each of them specializing in a particular element makes us more adaptable to our environment (or manipulating it to our favor) and give us more option for AoE type of attacks. If you're leaning towards mana focus, I suggest fire, wind, metal and earth as your choice of affinities as they are the most practical, but that's up to you to decide. There's no such thing as a bad affinity as any could be valuable if you use them the right way.

If you're leaning towards a more physical squad (3 weapons, 2 mana), I would suggest that at least one of your weapon specs be a range type (bow, crossbow). A range weapon spec would be useful if you want to take out key targets from afar, especially if you're trying to be sneaky before going in for the kill.

Also know that you'll be assign mounts, a Sharen Alliance squad gets three dragon mount. One for the leader and two members will have to share a dragon. They're not as fast as the Sargh or Nal mounts, but they are tanks, hit like one and takes a lot to kill them. In the last campaign, it took 3 Sargh squads (15 members) to kill one dragon, what we lack in quantity we make up with quality. For those sharing a dragon with another, I advice having a melee weapon spec take the front seat with a range/mana spec in the back.

Goblin: Thanks so much for your post. I really appreciate that you took the time to write that out for us; it's super helpful!

Guilty: Yes indeed I do! Though, admittedly, not much.

Notes on Venlyn

Member of Zala'ess line

Has no consideration for the line of succession; she doesn't care

Seeks to make name for herself, and glory for her family, through the Sharen Alliance's efforts on the surface. Even if she is of no consideration for the throne, she wouldn't be opposed to a prestigious rank.

Bit of a classist; doesn't care much for commoners (Note: In her eyes, her protector twin would not be a commoner, regardless of her origins. Thus, though she wouldn't necessarily consider her twin her equal, she wouldn't treat her like dirt either.) Naturally, this attitude towards commoners means she thinks very little of the Sarghress

Venlyn has a fiery temper which likely has gotten her and her twin into trouble in the past. She lacks tolerance for the stupidity of others, which is where this temper has often flared.